Trump thanks 3M, Apple for coronavirus production efforts

President Trump says 3M and Apple agreed to produce masks and face shields for health care workers on the front lines. He also heralds Salesforce for delivering PPE to New York.

Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here.

Continue Reading Below

President Trump settled his differences with 3M at Monday's coronavirus task force briefing and he expressed gratitude towards the medical mask maker and thanked tech companies Salesforce and Apple.

“We reached an agreement, a very amicable agreement with 3M for the delivery of an additional 55.5 million high-quality face masks each month," Trump said at the White House briefing room. "We are going to be getting over the next couple of months 166.5 million masks for our frontline healthcare workers. So the 3M saga ends very happily."

In an interview with FOX Businesses' Maria Bartiromo last week, 3M CEO Mike Roman called charges of 3M shipping protective equipment abroad to countries that offered to pay a higher price than the U.S. "absurd" after Trump commented and tweeted about it.

"We are very proud to be dealing now with 3M and its CEO Mike Roman," Trump said. "I just spoke with him and I thanked him for getting it done and Mike was very happy to get it done.”

Trump also praised Apple for revving up its production facilities to manufacture 20 million face shields. Touting how Apple has "really leapt into action," Trump said the moves by the tech giant will see them "producing plastic face shields for healthcare workers at the rate of 1 million per week."

APPLE DONATES 1.9M CORONAVIRUS MASKS TO NY

Late Sunday night, Software company Salesforce donated a planeload of personal protective equipment to New York state to aid in the harrowing fight against COVID-19.

Trump said Salesforce has donated 48 million pieces of personal protective equipment including masks, gowns, suits and face shields.

So thank you very much Salesforce," the president said.

The equipment will be delivered to health care workers in New York who have been grappling with a lack of critically-needed medical supplies.

Since the outbreak, the rush to secure supplies has prompted intense squabbling between the states and federal government at a moment the nation is facing one of its gravest emergencies. Leaders like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have been forced to go outside normal channels and work with authoritarian governments and private companies.

CORONAVIRUS IMPACT: STATE-BY-STATE RESTRICTIONS

Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Softbank and L'Oréal are some of the other companies that have donated supplies to help increase the New York's, and the country's, supply capacity because of the crisis.

Trump said “American industry is stepping up."

KUDLOW SAYS US ECONOMY COULD 'SNAP BACK' FROM CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Cuomo was impressed with the corporate efforts.

"New York is fighting a war against this virus and we need all the help we can get," Cuomo said. "The generosity of these companies, organizations and individuals — and many others coming forward every day to offer support — will play a critical role in our mission to bolster our hospital surge capacity, support frontline workers and get people the help they need.

On Sunday, the state reported 594 new coronavirus deaths, which was fewer than the 630 new fatalities announced on Saturday. ICU admissions and intubations were also down, the governor said. And the discharge rate from hospitals was rising.

As of Monday, confirmed cases across the state topped 123,000 with overall fatalities climbing to nearly 4,200, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.